


but you need a compass to get around your house

by cappers



Category: Free!
Genre: Gen, M/M, Rinharu Week
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-27
Updated: 2014-11-27
Packaged: 2018-02-27 04:08:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2678480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cappers/pseuds/cappers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He thinks of how, once, he had wished to turned twenty faster and be ordinary, how that date had passed years ago and he is still no closer to being ordinary. How he will never be ordinary with Rin by his side.</p><p>[day eight: eternal - like the oceans that connect us]</p>
            </blockquote>





	but you need a compass to get around your house

**Author's Note:**

> title from 'pictures' by benjamin francis leftwich

They go back to the beach on their last day in Sydney.

It’s cold, and each breath mists in the air. Haruka hears footsteps thudding on the sidewalk behind them, rhythmic beats of joggers on their early-morning run, but there aren’t a lot of people around. It’s early enough that the sun is still creeping past the horizon, not yet fully up – 6 a.m. when he’d last checked, as they walked out of the hotel – and it is, after all, winter here.

The tide is low, and they have to walk a quite a bit further to reach the water, this time. They leave their backpacks and shoes and socks within sight. Haruka’s fingers itch to take off his pants too, but he reminds himself that he hadn’t brought his swimsuit on this trip, that he isn’t wearing any now. He settles for following Rin’s lead, bending down to fold up the hems of his pants.

The cool water at his ankles is a shock to his senses, running up his spine, and he can feel Rin jolting next to him.

The ocean is wide before them, the water lapping at their feet. If he squints, he can see a few seagulls in the distance.

 _Thank you_ , Haruka thinks. _For bringing me here. For showing me this_.

‘I see what you mean now,’ he says, instead. ‘Looking at the sea – it’s relaxing.’

‘Isn’t it?’ Rin cocks a grin as he kicks water in Haruka’s direction. And then, softer, as if imparting a secret – ‘I’ll come back here often, probably, once I’ve settled down. My friends, Sousuke, you, just over the edge… that’s still what I see when I look beyond the water.’

The sun is higher up now, the sky a swirl of orange and pink and blue and grey. It’s been a while since Haruka had watched the sun rise. The warm rays dance across the planes of Rin’s face, and the strands of his hair catch the light, glimmering. Haruka has to blink twice.

Makoto. Nagisa. Rei. His parents, too. They are all beyond this ocean, somewhere, on the other side, but –

‘I’m here,’ he says, and Rin stills. ‘Next to you.’

The water pulls back, dissipating from around their feet. Distantly, he hears the rustling of feathers, the chirping of birds. The sun seems impossibly bright before them. It’s a new day.

‘Yeah,’ Rin concedes, his face breaking into a small smile. ‘Yeah, you are.’

 

It’s become a habit to keep his phone on him at all times. Haruka has more use of it now that he isn’t around five of the eight people who have his number everyday, and it constantly vibrates in his pocket during class. Nagisa mails him often, sending spirited updates on how the swim team is doing and blurry photos of Rei, whose messages are more sporadic. Sometimes, he get mails from Makoto, to confirm that nothing has come up and that their fortnightly Thursday night dinners were still on, but what he gets on an even more regular basis are selfies sent from Makoto’s phone by Kisumi, who coincidentally happens to be attending the same university as Makoto.

It’s a rare occasion when he receives a message from Rin. They don’t talk, during the day – whatever they want to share with one another, they save for that night.

Both of their schedules are packed with trainings and competitions and schoolwork and whatever little social life they manage to fit in between their commitments but they try their best, most nights, to call one another, whether by phone or Skype. The latter takes more time, though, and all they have time for tonight, after grueling practice sessions on both sides, is a short phone call before bed.

He listens to the rings reverberating from the phone as he turns his lights off and makes his way towards his bed. Rin picks up on the third ring. With one hand holding the phone to his ear, he pulls the cover over his body, settling into bed and idly listening to Rin chatter on about his day and how he is totally now head-to-head with that Miller guy.

‘How was your day, though, Haru?’ Rin asks.

He closes his eyes. His classes were fine. His lunch – mackerel and rice – was fine. His practice was fine. His dinner – mackerel and rice, again – was fine. His day was fine.

‘Haru?’

Haruka wets his lips, can feel sleep lazily washing over him, fogging his tongue and his brain and his heart and suddenly he feels like he is twelve again, with Rin hogging his blanket in a bed that felt at once too small and just right, like he is in Sydney again, at that hotel sharing that bed, sleeping with Rin, talking to Rin, whispering too-bright memories and baring his heart.

‘I want to see you,’ Haruka murmurs, more to himself than to Rin, really.

‘You already saw me last night,’ Rin replies, his voice laced with sleep, but light and teasing to Haruka’s ears.

Haruka knows this, can see the image of Rin from last night in the stoplight loosejaw shirt that is now with him on a semi-permanent basis ( _‘you can give it back next time you see me,’ Haruka had said, as he’d handed the shirt, carefully folded, to Rin at the airport_ ) on the back of his eyelids.

‘No.’ His own voice is somehow too loud in the dark room, seemingly thundering over the faint ticking of his alarm clock, but he continues anyway. ‘I want to see you.’

The words hang in the air, suspended, and those extra ten laps that he swam today are catching up with him now. He is struggling to keep his eyes open when he hears a ‘me too’ from his right, and the words echo in his ribcage, coiling around his heart.

As he does most nights, Haruka falls asleep with his phone next to him.

 

It has been three months and one week since they last met, and Rin says so to Haruka when they see each other in the locker room.

‘Three months and nine days,’ Haruka corrects, as he drops his bag on the bench. They both count, and they both know they both count.

‘I was rounding down to the nearest week,’ Rin huffs good-naturedly, unzipping his tracksuit jacket and shrugging it off.

They’re placed in adjacent lanes this time. Haruka has no particular pre-match quirks of his own, no good luck charms or gestures, has never had any need for them, but something warm settles in his chest when he hears the snap of Rin’s goggles, and somehow, it’s comforting. That Rin, who stands next to him now as he has done time and time again, does this before every race, has always done it and will always continue to do it. That some things never change, and that this is where they began and this is where they will go.

It’s the calm, as they say, before the storm.

And the whistle is blown.

 

They’re sitting outside some café a five-minute walk away from their hotel, and Haruka stares mournfully at his plate.

‘It’s still fish,’ Rin says, with a lilt to his voice that’s probably meant to be consoling but only manages to come off as teasing.

Haruka picks up his sandwich and bites into it anyway, and it is surprisingly good for a meal that does not consist primarily of mackerel. Life is full of wonders.

Across from him, Rin is absentmindedly sipping his iced tea, eyes roaming over the people walking past and elbows sprawled all over the table and his left foot rhythmically nudging Haruka’s, one-two, one-two, one-two. When Haruka taps his foot back, Rin startles, jolting almost comically. His face reddens, and it clashes with his hair.

‘I wasn’t trying to play footsie with you,’ Rin declares firmly, stomping his left foot on the ground for emphasis. ‘Don’t get the wrong idea.’

‘Okay.’

‘I really wasn’t.’

‘Okay.’

Their conversation, if it can be called that, lulls back into a silence punctuated by the taps of Rin’s foot, now against the ground. Haruka finds he misses the feeling of it against his own.

They do this a lot, after their races. Go out for lunch, dinner, afternoon tea, supper, whatever, and watch the people walking past them. People going on with their day, people who live here, in this city, who maybe walk this street everyday and pass this café everyday and take for granted what is so new to Haruka, views and sights that, in another life, he might never have experienced.

Sometimes, when the breeze is cool and Rin is humming under his breath and the light hits everything just right, Haruka lets his mind wander. They’re on the way home, he thinks, from university, from practice. They’re taking a break together here, and when they leave, they will go to the supermarket, the one across the street that Haruka can see just out of the corner of his eye, and they will buy ingredients for dinner. They’ll walk back together to… one of the townhouses across the plaza, maybe, and it’ll be Haruka’s turn to cook, and he will make mackerel and rice, and Rin will complain again and ask for seconds anyway.

And then a dog barks in the distance, and his daydreams melt away as quickly as they came, and it’s okay because this is better than any imaginary life in any city that he’s ever visited.

And, in these past two years, he’s visited a lot of cities with Rin.

When Rin turns back around, smiling that little lopsided smile of his, with the right corner of his lips raised higher than the left and his eyes glittering – that’s when Haruka understands.

Their lives have been inexplicably intertwined, even since Haruka made the decision to follow Rin into this world – no, even before that, this had all started much earlier, had begun when Rin had single-mindedly barrelled into his life and cajoled him into swimming a relay, had taught him the joy of _swimming_ and swimming _with friends_ before abandoning him for Australia and a dream bigger and brighter than Haruka could comprehend – no, further, earlier, even before, it started with their first race, the day they first met, when Haruka had glanced down at the boy who came second, the boy who would change his life for good.

Rin may have pushed him here, yes, driven him, fuelled him, but he doesn't _need_ Rin here with him. They are not two halves of one whole, of a single body, of a single soul. It’s not that he needs Rin here with him.

It’s that Haruka wants him by his side, all the same.

Haruka breathes in and out, once, twice, and then, feeling emboldened the way he always does around Rin, stretches out his right leg and kicks Rin’s shin lightly.

‘You could have just said,’ Haruka says, ‘if you wanted to play footsie.’

 

‘So,’ the interviewer begins, ‘it’s no secret that you two have been friends for a long time. You were part of the same swimming club back in elementary school, yes?’

This is not the first time they’ve gotten this question. This is probably more like the fifteenth time they’ve gotten this question, ever since they were chosen as national representatives and people found them interesting enough to dig into their history.

Haruka nods, while Rin takes the time and effort to give an actual verbal answer: ‘Yes, that’s right.’

‘And your friendship has continued well past your adolescence! I’ve heard it said – from your coaches and your teammates, that is – that no one can push either one of you like the other does! Truly, the stuff movies are made of! Tell me, if you had to make a movie of your lives, what kind would it be?’

Haruka vaguely remembers getting a similar question, once.

Rin is contemplating this seriously, he can tell. Finally, carefully, because this is not ground that they have treaded upon in any other interview, he says, ‘We went through a lot of ups and downs. I was in a troubled place, once, and I was saved, by Haru and our other friends. I hope there was a time when I’ve done the same for him too, so, for genre, I would say – a coming-of-age.’

The interviewer’s eyes are turned onto him now, and Haruka has done enough of these interviews to know that an answer is now expected of him.

A coming-of-age works. They’ve clashed and fought, pushed and pulled, and somehow grown up together along the way. But beyond that, there’s something else. When Haruka closes his eyes, he sees Rin in his mind’s eye, struggling to get out of the pool, sees himself running, desperate, feet pounding with every step, yelling, screaming. He can see Rin’s tears dropping onto his face, running down his cheeks, can feel surety and relief bloom in his heart because this here in front of him is a glimpse of Rin as he had been, as Haruka had known him. The exhilaration that he feels when racing Rin, ever since and even before, has been unparalleled, unrivalled.

He thinks of how, once, he had wished to turned twenty faster and be ordinary, how that date had passed years ago and he is still no closer to being ordinary. How he will never be ordinary with Rin by his side.

‘A coming-of-age,’ Haruka agrees, catching Rin’s eye and awaiting the inevitable flush up Rin’s neck, ‘and a romance.’


End file.
